Diebold AccuVote-TS Security Flaw

Diebold is at it again, this time with the Diebold AccuVote-TS. The same company that decided to use Microsoft Windows to keep your money safe (see Diebold ATM Crashes, Dispenses Tunes - Not Money) is now apparently leaving American elections wide open.

The Open Voting Foundation secured a new Diebold AccuVote-TS and took it apart. Their press release states:

Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

The most serious flaw is that the machine easily allows someone servicing (or merely opening) the machine to choose between EPROM and FLASH configurations. This means that a new profile could easily be placed in the FLASH memory; legal and certified files could be overridden and replaced by uncertified code - and then switched back - without anyone knowing.

Science fiction enthusiasts have been hoping that odd or dangerous behavior on the part of ATM machines would be restricted to the fictional kind - like the Lucky Dragon ATM of William Gibson's 1999 novel All Tomorrow's Parties. On the other hand, the Lucky Dragon ATM could at least defend itself.